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I can't show you guys the "with vs. without" results fully until somebody comes over with a DSLR camera, but I DIY'd a method to make my corals fluoresce brighter than you can possibly imagine.
I have had my 60w 50/50 white:blue fixture over my 20 gallon long SPS tank for a few months. I was very happy with it at first; in fact, I am still happy with it. The problem is that a 50/50 light left something to be desired for me personally. It seamed that when I got the corals to fluoresce, the tank was completely blue washed but when I got that natural daylight color I wanted, the corals just looked dull. There was no compromise so I just went on with a blue-washed tank.
I have been shopping around for a while to find a company willing to build me a pair of PAR38 LED bulbs to my specs for accent lighting over my tank in hopes to get more pop. The quotes were either astronomically priced or required me to buy a large quantity. I found one seller on ebay selling lights with a red and green added to the spectrum but they were 3w LEDs making them not exactly the "accent" lighting I was looking for, plus a single 3w red LED is probably overkill no matter which way you look at it being that the colors weren't independently dimmable. They were also almost all white and blue LEDs. So this is what I did:
I started with two of these:
![]()
Notice the difference optics in the center, that is because this is an "after" picture. Ignore that part as your lights will not have diffused optics if you order them. The lights were about $20 shipped each off of ebay.
I bought the lights before starting this project so that I could take them apart and figure out their construction. There are four phillips screw holding the front cover to the base. Under the base, there are 20mmx10mm optics just sitting on the LED bulbs:
![]()
Underneath the lenses you will find the LED bulbs themselves:
![]()
Each of these bulbs is a 1w LED as these are 15w bulbs. The bulbs you replace them with should be 1w as well unless you want to replace the power supply which you have access to by removing the three phillips screw on the back. I ordered 10 395nm UV bulbs, four 445nm blue and one 660nm red per bulb.
In order to put in the new bulbs, you first need to desolder the old bulbs:
![]()
I used a modified butane soldering iron because it gets hotter a lot faster and was less likely to burn the board. I stuck a razor blade under the LED and melted the solder to pull each terminal away one at a time.
I chose to install a ring of UV LED bulbs all of the way around the outside with the four blue bulbs and one red bulb in the middle:
![]()
Installing new LED bulbs on top of older solder required me to bend up the terminals on each bulb. I had to do this to keep the bottom of the bulb on the thermally conductive surface. Apply new thermal paste under each bulb.
I ordered a bunch of 60 degree optics for my LED bulbs and then 120 degree diffused optics for my red and blue bulbs:
![]()
After you stick your lenses on, place the front cover back on the bulb and test it out:
![]()
The UV bulbs are not as bright because our eyes can't see the color; however, a camera can. They do not show as bright in the picture because they are beyond the 60 degree angle of optics.
And check out the results:
![]()
Yes, I know that this picture looks very red. I ramped down my normal lights to about 15% for the whites and 25% for the blues to get any color at all other than blue to show in this picture. I need some DSLR shots to really show the difference.
The first thing that I noticed is that every single coral in the tank now fluoresces even with the normal lights on full blast. The reds, pinks and purples have gotten DEEP. The teals and greens have gotten so much brighter that one particular teal coral which you couldn't even see without looking for it is now the brightest and most eye-catching coral in the tank. The biggest shocker didn't even come from one of my coral. With only one of these lights done and hung over my tank, my yellowfin flasher wrasse swam under the light from the other side of the aquarium and began to glow and absolutely brilliant pink!!! My copperband butterfly followed him over and WOW, his stripes became an amazing orange!
So there you have it. Please, try this out for yourself! You will not be able to believe the results. The girlfriend and I sat there turning the light on and off over and over again looking at the changes. To be honest, its just bland without it now.
I will post before and after pictures with a DSLR sometime very soon. :dance:
I have had my 60w 50/50 white:blue fixture over my 20 gallon long SPS tank for a few months. I was very happy with it at first; in fact, I am still happy with it. The problem is that a 50/50 light left something to be desired for me personally. It seamed that when I got the corals to fluoresce, the tank was completely blue washed but when I got that natural daylight color I wanted, the corals just looked dull. There was no compromise so I just went on with a blue-washed tank.
I have been shopping around for a while to find a company willing to build me a pair of PAR38 LED bulbs to my specs for accent lighting over my tank in hopes to get more pop. The quotes were either astronomically priced or required me to buy a large quantity. I found one seller on ebay selling lights with a red and green added to the spectrum but they were 3w LEDs making them not exactly the "accent" lighting I was looking for, plus a single 3w red LED is probably overkill no matter which way you look at it being that the colors weren't independently dimmable. They were also almost all white and blue LEDs. So this is what I did:
I started with two of these:
Notice the difference optics in the center, that is because this is an "after" picture. Ignore that part as your lights will not have diffused optics if you order them. The lights were about $20 shipped each off of ebay.
I bought the lights before starting this project so that I could take them apart and figure out their construction. There are four phillips screw holding the front cover to the base. Under the base, there are 20mmx10mm optics just sitting on the LED bulbs:
Underneath the lenses you will find the LED bulbs themselves:
Each of these bulbs is a 1w LED as these are 15w bulbs. The bulbs you replace them with should be 1w as well unless you want to replace the power supply which you have access to by removing the three phillips screw on the back. I ordered 10 395nm UV bulbs, four 445nm blue and one 660nm red per bulb.
In order to put in the new bulbs, you first need to desolder the old bulbs:
I used a modified butane soldering iron because it gets hotter a lot faster and was less likely to burn the board. I stuck a razor blade under the LED and melted the solder to pull each terminal away one at a time.
I chose to install a ring of UV LED bulbs all of the way around the outside with the four blue bulbs and one red bulb in the middle:
Installing new LED bulbs on top of older solder required me to bend up the terminals on each bulb. I had to do this to keep the bottom of the bulb on the thermally conductive surface. Apply new thermal paste under each bulb.
I ordered a bunch of 60 degree optics for my LED bulbs and then 120 degree diffused optics for my red and blue bulbs:
After you stick your lenses on, place the front cover back on the bulb and test it out:
The UV bulbs are not as bright because our eyes can't see the color; however, a camera can. They do not show as bright in the picture because they are beyond the 60 degree angle of optics.
And check out the results:
Yes, I know that this picture looks very red. I ramped down my normal lights to about 15% for the whites and 25% for the blues to get any color at all other than blue to show in this picture. I need some DSLR shots to really show the difference.
The first thing that I noticed is that every single coral in the tank now fluoresces even with the normal lights on full blast. The reds, pinks and purples have gotten DEEP. The teals and greens have gotten so much brighter that one particular teal coral which you couldn't even see without looking for it is now the brightest and most eye-catching coral in the tank. The biggest shocker didn't even come from one of my coral. With only one of these lights done and hung over my tank, my yellowfin flasher wrasse swam under the light from the other side of the aquarium and began to glow and absolutely brilliant pink!!! My copperband butterfly followed him over and WOW, his stripes became an amazing orange!
So there you have it. Please, try this out for yourself! You will not be able to believe the results. The girlfriend and I sat there turning the light on and off over and over again looking at the changes. To be honest, its just bland without it now.
I will post before and after pictures with a DSLR sometime very soon. :dance:
